Tuesday, June 16, 2009

If you cared, I’d say the last 3 weeks were like being inside a whirlwind.

But I’m guessing you don’t. I mean I understand, I wouldn’t care myself either.

I mean let’s be honest. You don’t reaaally care, do you now? It’s all well and ok to come here and read me out. But you’ve got your own real whirlwinds to deal with.

My breathings, sometimes lucid or well drawn out though they maybe, might be interesting, might be highly mundane, but at the end of it all, they’re just a chapter in a novel for you.

And so they should be.

Which is why I’m going to do this one just for myself. After all everyone needs a selfish every now and again.

So lets see CD, what did, we do?

There was that asshole of an exam for which you took a whole week off from work to study for and give. They had said study a minimum of 3 months for it. But no, what do they know. After all they’re not as intelligent as you. You laughed at them and said 3 months is one week for me, you tossers. Showed them 2 fingers and scowled at the same time.

When you finally sat down to it and saw what the syllabus entailed, you barely had time to shit. Now you’re praying the results, when they come out in 2 months time, show you some mercy. For they won’t.

Then there was the pool league. Now that was good news, wasn’t it. Your team reached the playoffs, won the finals and you were busy getting drunk in celebration. And then in the middle of his 9th drink, the captain of the team suddenly got out of his drunken stupor, all big eyed as if finally remembering something massive. He grabbed you by the collar and yelled “Shit! I forgot to tell you guys, for winning the finals, we get a free paid vacation to Vegas in August”.

It was only when you were brushing your teeth and looking at the bags under your eyes in the mirror the next day that you remembered what the madman was yelling.

Oh that toothpaste, it never tasted so fine.

Your memory fades you now. Everything’s becoming untangled from the timeline. But you know somewhere in those 3 weeks there was the first poker game you’ve ever won, the secret quest for a secret something that drove you near mad, friends over from India who needed to be drunk to, friends over from the east side who needed to be drunk to, friends over from the west side who needed to be drunk to, bad news, really bad news and really good news.

And despite all this, it always threatened to be just the tip of the iceberg.

There was the new role at work. They moved you to the buy side and you could finally yell at the sell side. Called brokers and yelled at them just for the heck of it. “Cause you could”. Learning experience your trader told you. Initiation rite. You told the private equity guys their funding was being frozen. When you heard the grown man at the other end of the line almost cry, you realized your power trip could drive you mad.

Then you remembered your favourite quote - “Work is an ends to a mean, not the end in itself”. And so you left work at the work place. Drank beer at the beer place. All was well with the world again.

You yelled back at your pool captain, while he was holding your collar and shouting some drunken gibberish - “Power trips are for ego maniacs and soulless bastards. I want hiking boots and undiscovered lands. A fishing rod, more than enough to drink and a girl with a sense of humour and a smile to make it alright”.

You wondered how his toothpaste tasted the next day.

And through it all, your spine’s been tingling. Yes, the same holiday tingle it loves to do whenever it gets the scent. You’ve been browsing travel websites about Paris while hungover almost every day at office. And after lunch you’d move to Bordeaux websites. Booking cars, hotels, insurance, visas.

Friday is almost here and that jet plane leaves with you on it. She’ll already be in Paris when you land. At the airport. It’ll have been 6 months. In most religions that’s blasphemous. But that tingle in your spine nags at you and lets you know it'll be all that much more worth it.

And you know, this one has the sense of humour you've been waiting for and the smile to make it alright.